DESIGNS

Design registrations and Design Right protect the look of a product rather than its functionality. Registrations can protect surface ornamentation or the shape of a product, and require a formal application to be made at the Intellectual Property Office. In contrast, “unregistered” Design Right is an automatic right which can protect the shape of products and requires no formal application.

A valid design registration needs to be new and have “individual character”. However, unlike patents, applications for design registration are not substantively examined for such validity requirements. They must however meet certain formality requirements to be registered.

Accordingly, design registrations can be a useful and relatively quick IP strategy to protect a designer’s work whilst inhibiting freedom of design of competitors. They give the registration owner the right to stop others using a product with the same look as the registered design, as well as stopping products which do not give an informed user a different overall impression from the registered design. Features which are solely dictated by technical function cannot be protected by design registration. Nevertheless, there may still be some merit in registered designs for functional items.

Unregistered Design Right may be loosely thought of as “industrial copyright”. It is established automatically by a qualifying person creating a three-dimensional design which is not commonplace or excluded. It lasts for 10 years from first marketing, or 15 years from design.

To infringe Design Right, a third party needs to copy the design entirely or substantially. This right can be very useful to tackle a third party who copies a design, including industrial designs, rather than designing it themselves. Functional devices may have valid protection although there are exclusions from protection for designs whose shape is solely reliant on another article to interface with, or match the appearance of.

This is a short-term unregistered design right which lasts for three years from making it public. It can protect surface patterns as well as shapes.